


the nebulous traveller, abating clarity

by bubblewrapstargirl



Series: the lone traveller multiverse [13]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Autistic Character, Family Feels, Gen, M/M, Mentions of Character Death, POV Child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-15 20:32:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13621155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubblewrapstargirl/pseuds/bubblewrapstargirl
Summary: One: Merik Redbolt's life makes the most sense at the Dreadfort; he would be very pleased if he never had to leave it again.Two: Merik's life continues to only make sense in places under his control. All sorts of mayhem is unleashed in other men's castles.





	1. Chapter 1

Merik Redbolt was not aware that there was anything unusual in having a Father and a Pod, until they had occasion to leave the Dreadfort. At the Dreadfort, everything had a place, and made perfect sense. He lived with all his family. His grandparents and Uncle Dom and Aunt Wylla, his cousins, and baby Aunt Ingrid. The world outside of the Dreadfort was not so easy to understand. Merik knew they lived in the Kingdom of the North, which was very large. The Dreadfort was somewhere in the middle, but Aunt Wylla’s family lived on the coast which was far away.

Sometimes, they travelled to White Harbour, to play with Beth and Rosy’s fat cousins. Things there were different, and not in a way that Merik found exciting. They just had a lot more people, and everyone spoke very loudly. The worst thing about it, however, was that Pod did not spend so much time with them. 

Pod slept in a chamber far away from Father and Merik, and did not sit with them at meal times. Merik didn’t like that most of all, because Father wasn’t half so good at cutting up his meat. But Pod still told him a story before tucking him into bed, and helped him onto his pony, when they went out riding. Father was often busy with Uncle Dom. But Pod took him to the market to eat cockles and whelks, and down to the harbour to look at the boats. Merik liked that very much, because there were many types of gulls there that squawked when Merik squawked back. 

Still, it was strange to be without him sometimes, especially when other people didn’t seem to understand the function of a Pod. Merik heard someone refer to him as his guard, which was silly because Pod didn’t even dress in the Bolton livery. And Wyrik Tarly seemed to think Pod was Merik's distant cousin, because they shared the same House name.

“Pod is my Father’s wife.” Merik insisted to the other boy, who obviously did not know much about House Bolton and its cadet branches.

Wyrik, who was dressed in an orange tunic which made him look like a big round pumpkin squashed into the patch, made a strange face at that. He seemed to be suspicious, but Merik was not very good at reading faces. He found it easier to understand tones of voice. Pod had a very kind voice, whereas Father had a different voices for different things.

“But Ser Podrick is a man!” Wyrik cried out, as though he thought Merik were japing. As if that would make a difference to Fathers and their wives.

Merik could not understand the surprise in the boy’s tone. “So?”

As usual, Beth chose to interrupt their conversation, flipping her long hair over her shoulder with an arrogant swish. 

“Wyrik is right,” she said haughtily, “Mother says Pod is Uncle Ramsay’s parr-more, which means you’re not married.” 

Merik was not fond of his cousin Beth. She was the eldest, and thought she therefore knew everything. He much preferred Rosy, who liked to play with him. Their favourite game was Knights and Dragons. It was the most fun because Rosy made a very good dragon. Roaring and shrieking, whilst Merik tried to get at the treasure (which was usually a tray of jam tarts). 

But sometimes Rosy wanted to be the Knight, which was also fun. Because then Merik could sit under the table, and pretend it was a dungeon. Then he would get to be the fair Prince who needed to be rescued. Sometimes Pod would consent to play the dragon for them and chase them about, as they tried to ‘flee’ from the dungeon. Sometimes they were both dragons, and they hunted Pod through the godswood before roasting him for dinner. Beth rarely wanted to play with them, not even when her stupid cousins Wyrik and Mylessa wanted to join in.

“That’s not true!” Merik pouted, wishing he knew what a ‘parr-more’ was.

“It is so,” Beth countered, “The Dornish have parr-mores instead of wives all the time. Even Prince Oberyn Martell.”

“The Dornish are stupid.” Merik countered, before running off to find Rosy to play with instead, because she didn’t say stupid, untrue things.

That night when Pod came to tell him a story and kiss him goodnight, Merik decided to settle the matter once and for all. Asking if it was true that Pod and Father were not married. Merik was distressed to find this was indeed the case.

“But why not?” he moaned, “Now Beth will be right again!”

“I’m sorry for that, sweetling,” Pod said, pressing a kiss to Merik’s forehead. It did nothing to make him less grumpy at the thought of Beth being smug as usual.

“But why don’t you marry? If you're not Father's wife, then he doesn’t have one.” Merik pointed this out with great emphasis, as though Pod might somehow have been unaware of this important fact.

“Well, your Father would have to ask me first.” Pod whispered conspiratorially, “That’s how marriage works.”

Satisfied with this surmountable obstacle at least, Merik consented to snuggle down to sleep.

*

Father proved to be more difficult than Merik had anticipated. He was very busy at New Castle, talking to other men who were also very busy, and it was hard to get a moment alone with him. When Merik succeeded, Father only wanted to ask about Wyrik. It was terribly frustrating.

When at last Merik caught his Father alone in their guest solar, he found himself tongue-tied, which sometimes happened to him. Eventually, he simply blurted out;

“Why have you not married?” which was not very specific or helpful.

Father lowered down the parchment he had been reading through then, and levelled Merik with a very narrow look from over the top of it.

“Should you like me to marry?” he asked, in same the cold way that grandfather usually spoke to Merik. 

Still, Merik was not frightened. The answer seemed very obvious to him.

“Yes!” he demanded. 

But if anything, Father seemed even more annoyed. He set down the scroll he had been reading with a decisive thump, and turned the full force of his glare at him. Merik did very well not to flinch, he thought.

“Is that so?” Father hissed at him. “You have never expressed doubt about our household before. Who can have been putting these ideas in your head, hmm?”

Father’s eye took on the dangerous glint, which Merik did recognize, as it meant someone was about to be in big trouble. Briefly, he considered volunteering Beth. But scowled when he remembered that Father would leave Beth’s punishment to Uncle Dom, as he always did.

“Wyrik Tarly said you were not yet married to Pod, and-”

“Pod?” said Father, baffled.

“Yes, and-” Merik barreled onward, until Father stilled his tongue by holding up his hand for silence. Merik knew better than to talk then.

“Am I to understand,” Father said slowly, “That you are speaking of a marriage between myself and Pod?”

Merik blinked at him, though he supposed it was true that he hadn’t mentioned that part in the beginning. “Who else?”

Father smirked at him then, and beckoned him closer. It wasn’t usual for Father to embrace him, or press a kiss to his cheek. But he did both of those things then, before instructing Merik to run along and play. Without agreeing to marry Pod, which was disappointing. But Merik knew better than to linger when he’d been given a command, so he went to find Rosy to play at being dragons. He was going to be Sunfyre the Golden this time.

When they were about to leave White Harbour and go home, Father presented Pod with a large cherry tree sapling. It was a gift, to take home and plant in the godswood with the other cherry trees. Pod blushed something fierce, especially when Father kissed his cheek right there in front of everyone. Wyrik frowned at that, so Merik stuck his tongue out at him.

Once a year on Pod’s nameday, Cook baked a sour black cherry tart, because it was Pod’s favourite. But it was too difficult to get enough cherries from their small grove, to make them all year round. That meant it was a very special treat, and Merik wasn't allowed to have a large slice because the biggest piece was always for Pod. Now, because of the new tree, they would be able to have it far more often, with larger slices. 

Father and Pod didn’t marry, but Merik supposed a life's supply of cherries was an outcome just as sweet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure I'm making it evident that Merik is on the autism spectrum?
> 
> I am meant to be doing actual work/revision and here I am writing 1k of LGBT issues in Westerosi culture from the POV of a child with two dads.


	2. Chapter 2

“I’m going to tear out his entrails, and string them up in a line. Low to the ground, so my bitches can devour the sausages all the way to their source!” Merik raged, uncharacteristically passionate.

Podrick regarded him calmly, unmoved by his tirade, save to raise both brows incredulously.

“For a moment then, I do believe your flesh was inhabited by the spirit of your father,” he said, “It was almost as if he was standing right across from me. You do look so very like him, when you are worked up into a frenzy.”

He paused, as if considering how often Merik resembled his father, when most that knew her told Merik he looked the image of his long-dead mother.

“Father would not have stood for this,” Merik paused in his pacing to stand, red-faced, fists clenching and unclenching reflectively. He wanted to wrap them around Hugo Tuttle’s throat.

“No indeed,” Podrick murmured, looking deep into the fire. For a moment, his face was grief-stricken, before he visibly shook off his ennui.

“What _would_ Father have done?” asked Merik pitifully. He was woefully unprepared for situations such as these.

His parents had prepared him for the politics of the North, and taught him how to maintain their trading negotiations with the Iron Islands and the Reach. He had never been prepared for a sandal such as this to originate from his own House. Being Lord of the Redbolt was shaping up to be far more taxing than he had anticipated.

“We would not be having this conversation, were your Father still with us,” said Pod stoically, “For if he was, the man in question would already be dead.”

“I should visit Tuttle in the dungeons tonight, and see he never leaves them,” Merik decided, “If I am to retain any honour, I cannot let this slight against my household go unpunished.”

Pod clucked his tongue, unimpressed by Merik’s bravado. Though Merik was a man long-wedded, with children of age, Pod never ceased to make him feel a boy again when he found Merik's judgement to be lacking.

“You disapprove?” he asked, because at heart he was a soft boy, desperate for Pod’s approval.

“He did not rape her,” Pod reminded him, “As she has made perfectly clear, quite vocally. You will break her heart if you kill him, and women can be brutal in their contempt. She may never forgive you.”

Merik rubbed the crinkle of his furrowed temple, and once again cursed his lot, to be a man with two heirs. He had been invited to Winterfell for the harvest festival, as was his right, as the Lord of the Redbolt. He brought his household to the North's largest hurrah before winter, and was duly afforded all the respect of his station. But the Redbolt was not his only source of power. Through his marriage to Ingrid, and Uncle Dom’s acceptance of Merik as his heir, they stood in line to inherit the Dreadfort upon his death.

A man could not hope to manage two castles so far from one another, without leaving one to a castellan, and probably letting it fall into ruin. Merik would not allow such a thing to happen to either of his boyhood homes. The Dreadfort was the larger, more prestigious castle, and the Bolton man who lorded over it had the lineage of a line of unbroken kings and lords to draw upon. But he would be a fool if he did not retain control of Sea Dragon Harbour. It was the North’s second ever city, and a growing hubbub of innovation and artistic culture.

They had devised a cunning plan to perpetuate the good fortune of his line. Merik had decided to settle the Redbolt upon his daughter at his death, leaving his son to inherit the more prestigious lordship of the Dreadfort. That way, Merik could advance to the Dreadfort upon his uncle’s death, whilst knowing the Redbolt was in good hands.

Technically, Pod was still its lord. But he had ceded control to Merik some five years past, to give him the opportunity to flourish as a leader, whilst still being able to lean on the guidance of his guardian. It had taken some time for the Sea Dragon lords to stop addressing their woes to Pod, but eventually they had began to have confidence Merik’s judgement. And he had learnt to make decisions, without always looking to Pod and their maester for advice beforehand. Merik had never been tested quite like this before, however.

He scrubbed a calloused palm over his beard scruff and let out a moan of agitation.

“What am I to do?” he groaned, “Barba is already the most stubborn girl I have ever met. And she will punish me until I am bare bones in the ground, if I slight her.”

Pod’s lips held the hint of a smile, as though he was satisfied to see his surrogate son face similar battles in child-rearing as he had overcome himself.

“She has expressed a willingness to marry the man,” said Pod mildly.

Merik only narrowly resisted the urge to swipe his arm along the desk, smashing all the contents to the floor.

“And reward that ruffian, for defiling my daughter?” he howled instead.

“Your father defiled me a thousand times, and we were never married,” Pod pointed out gleefully.

Merik let out a choking sound like a dying cat, gagging theatrically.

“That is - _entirely_ \- beside the point,” he wheezed, once he caught his breath, looking faintly green.

“Not _entirely_ ,” Pod countered. “Many a couple take liberties before they are wed. Announce the match as though it was settled upon some time ago, and the sting of their actions is lessened somewhat.”

“None here would believe it, knowing how they were caught.”

Pod shrugged, unconcerned with the thoughts of others. “They need not believe it. It needs only to be recorded as such, in the written declarations of this time, and history will remember that record as truth.”

Merik sighed, but he could not deny that cynical take on Westerosi politics was likely the correct one.

“She was destined for greater than this,” he lamented, seating himself heavily at the small table where Pod had calmly remained during his tirade.

Pod commiserated with him over Barba’s lost fortune, for she could have had a second son from a great house; a Karstark or Umber, a Riverlands man or even a man from the many cadet branches of House Stark. Instead she had chosen to settle for a Tuttle.

“It is not so very low a match, anymore,” Pod reminded him softly, “They are no longer lowly pig-farmers and stable masters. The Tuttles oversaw the King’s goldmines after the war, and made quite a fortune squirreling away gold and silver.”

“Still, they come from lowly stock, and she is so pretty, and an heiress. She could have married a second son from a Great House.”

“I think she knows that,” Pod said gently, softening the blow, “In fact, I am sure of it.”

“Then why-”

“It is not yet public knowledge, that you intend for Barba to be the heir to the Redbolt,” explained Pod, “When it is, she will have no end of suitors, who care not one whit for the girl in question, only that they might be the lord of their own keep someday. Many second, third and fourth sons would kill their brothers for their father’s lands. Do you believe they would treat Barba well, once they held her fortune in their hands?”

Miserable to picture his daughter mistreated and melancholy, Merik shook his head sadly.

“So before she could be descended upon by greedy men she could never trust," Pod continued quietly, “I think Barba set out to find a kind young man. No other man’s heir, that she could trust with her happiness, as well as her father’s castle.” 

Merik suddenly felt very foolish, for needing to be spoon-fed the reasoning behind his daughter’s bold actions, now that it had been made so clear.

“Perhaps I owe her an apology,” he whispered, “I should have found her a kindly young man, before any rumours of her good fortune could circulate.”

“Perhaps,” Pod agreed, “But you are a busy man, as are all lords who command men, and she understands you did not need this extra burden. So she took it upon herself, and I think you will not find her choice wanting, once you come to learn more about his character.”

Merik grumbled, unsure about that. Whilst he had faith in his daughter, he was not sure he would ever be able to befriend the man that had lain with her without asking for her hand first. Pod placed an arm about his shoulders, and drew him close.

“Trust in your daughter’s judgement,” he said, “Hugo Tuttle might not be the man you would have chosen, but he is the man you must now work with. The pieces have been set upon the board, it is your duty to arrange them to your satisfaction.”

Merik pondered that for a pregnant moment.

“There is much he will probably agree to, for the privilege of escaping the dungeons as a betrothed man,” Merik supposed, the beginnings of a satisfied smirk dancing its way onto his face. He could feel a plan beginning to hatch.

“Yes indeed,” Pod agreed, tugging him forward to press a kiss to his forehead. “I’m sure you will think of some way to use this opportunity to your fullest advantage, son.”

“I’ll let you know what I can arrange,” Merik agreed, snuggling into the much-adored embrace of the only parent that remained to him.


End file.
